An LGBTQ Library of Love

Nicole pops the question inside the Algiers Point library

The best places to propose in New Orleans aren’t just huddled inside the French Quarter and City Park. Sure, those areas offer some spectacular backdrops for a romantic surprise. But there are hidden gems throughout the city that are waiting to be tapped for a proposal.

One of my greatest joys with proposal planning in New Orleans is helping people come up with a proposal plan that is unique to their relationship. Many couples are thrilled to use the Oaks in City Park or the St Louis Cathedral as their proposal location (and, I mean, why wouldn’t they? Both of those spots are gorgeous!). But some couples’ stories really call for a proposal that goes where other proposals haven’t gone before. And I mean that quite literally!

Nicole and Bailey planned a trip to New Orleans to celebrate their 2 year anniversary. She booked me months in advance and waited as patiently as possible until it was time for us to plan. I advise against planning further than 4-6 weeks ahead of time since so much can change even within that time frame. It also makes details muddy even with detailed notes.

When we finally got together to plan, Nicole was literally giddy. She told me that their plan for their anniversary was for Bailey to choose all of the morning’s activities and Nicole to plan the afternoon’s. She suspected Bailey might be planning on proposing earlier in the day! So we were going to have to plan a proposal that would knock her socks off.

Nicole and Bailey share a love of all things nerdy but the shared interest that jumped out the most to me was their love of books. I started brainstorming locations in New Orleans that were full of books- bookstores were my first thought since I know of several very cute, locally owned shops. But I’ve actually already done a lesbian proposal outside of a bookstore so I kept thinking. And then the perfect place popped into my head… followed by “duh, Lady!”

I reached out to a librarian friend to ask if she thought the New Orleans Public Library would allow us to stage a proposal inside one of their branches. She said that there was a lesbian proposal on the NOPL insta late last year so she’s sure it’s possible.

My first thought was “rats! It’s been done!” but then my second thought was “ok then, how can we do it differently?”

The proposal my friend mentioned happened afterhours at the Ladder branch- which is in a gorgeous Garden District mansion on St Charles Ave. The proposal was classic and simple- candles and roses on a mantle in a reading room. We could go that route… but why do what’s already been done?

I started looking through the different branches to find one that was in walkable area that would provide other cute date options. The one in the Bywater is in a cute date neighborhood but the branch itself isn’t so cute. The main library is very much not in a cute area and neither are several other branches I could think of. But then it dawned on me- the Algiers Point branch!

Algiers is the part of New Orleans that’s on the other side of the Mississippi river, aka the West Bank. Not many tourists venture over there but the ones that do discover an adorable little neighborhood a quick ferry ride away from downtown. The ferry ride itself is lovely and offers an excellent view of our modest skyline. And once across there are small bars, coffee shops, a few restaurants, and the historic architecture people associate with New Orleans.

Nicole LOVED the idea of proposing at an adorable little library after taking a ferry ride and a stroll around the neighborhood. Even the ring box she ordered was in the shape of a book! It was a perfect backdrop and date idea.

I got in touch with the head of the branch and she OK’d us doing a proposal there. I scheduled a time to cruise by and take photos as well so I could give Nicole the lay of the land and let her pick the spot to pop the question.

But I wasn’t going to stop there, have you met me?

I wanted to spice the proposal up a bit. I wanted there to be something waiting for Bailey to find wherever the right spot to propose was going to be. After shaking my brain around a bit I decided there should be a custom book waiting for them. I’d design a dust jacket for a hardcover book and then have something special written on the inside for Bailey to read. I was also going to leave a single lily with the book to help Nicole find it (lilies are Bailey’s favorite flower). All Nicole had to do was let me know what the title and special message should be as well as some direction on colors for the book.

She asked me to use a photo of the two of them dancing where Bailey is dipping Nicole and they’re both wearing Mardi Gras style masks, said she liked lavender and blues for the color, and decided the title should be No Question Marks. On the inside it would say Except for One…”

Can you even? I couldn’t even!

The story behind the book title was that one time early in their relationship Bailey texted Nicole “I love you!!!!!??!!!”. She was a little tipsy and those question marks slipped in accidentally. Nicole wrote back “I love you no question marks!” and it just became their thing. It sounded absolutely perfect for me. So after procrastinating marinating on it for a few weeks, me and my queer audacity that makes me think I can make anything got to work.

I’m not gonna lie, designing that cover was tough! I have never designed a book cover before and was going about it in the wrong way for a while. I liked the way I painted over the photo in procreate but beyond that I was struggling. A graphic designer friend suggested I look for inspiration on pinterest. I am likely the only creative woman in America who doesn’t really use pinterest so that thought didn’t even occur to me! I told him I was wanting to give it a bit of a classic romance novel vibe and he sent me a pinterest board someone else had created called “vintage romance novel covers I dig”. It was perfect!

I found a cover I liked and was off running! I used an AI generator to make a painting of a field of lilies in blues and purples, used the “what the font” app to identify the font on the inspo cover I was working from and found a similar one, then I combined all of the elements, chucked it through a painting filter, and formatted it the size of the dust jacket for the book I thrifted.

I also decided not to show it to Nicole so she could be surprised too! I knew she was going to love it.

I ordered a print of the book cover from Office Depot. That was my first mistake! I went to pick it up and didn’t bother to check the sizing until later that night. That was my second mistake! It was too small! Office Depot was open for another hour so I scooted across town again to see if it could be printed properly. It should come as a surprise to no one that it couldn’t be. So I returned home did what I should have done in the first place- send it to a small, local printer to be done.

(In my defense, when I was ready to send it to the printer it was on a weekend and the local shop was closed. They don’t have online ordering so I took the “easy” route and sent it to office depot. Never will I make that mistake again!)

The next morning, I called Arc and told them what I needed and begged them to print it for me same day. The sweet angel baby of a woman on the other end of the phone told me to send over the file and she’d get on it! I drove to a suburb of New Orleans to pick it up later that day. And because I am a goofy, I didn’t bring the book with me to check the size. It was too small again! This time only by a tiny bit, though, so I was determined to make it work.

I glued the pages of the book together with the idea that I’d write the message on the first page. But because I am oh so painfully an overachiever, I decided to hollow out space to put in a simple 4x6” frame so the couple could use the book to display a proposal photo instead of just having a fake book on their shelf.

Can I just tell you how incredibly hard it is to hollow out a book?? Holy moly! I spent hours chiseling away with a cut-off wheel on my trusty Ryobi rotary tool (sponsor me, Ryobi, pleeeeease!) and I still couldn’t get the frame to fit. So I scrapped that idea and came up with another one- I could get the piece of glass from the frame to fit so I’d turn it into a shadow box!

I got late, I was tired, my back hurt, and my nose was full of paper shavings. So I decided that was the perfect time to mess with the cover.

Aaaaand I wrecked it. SHOCKER! When will I ever learn to stop working once I’m exhausted and just finish the project the next day?

By then it was the Proposal Eve and Arc was closed for the day! ACK! So I finished the interior of the book and used some of the ruined cover to spruce it up.

Arc was able to reprint for me first thing the next morning and I raced out there before heading to the West Bank. She enlarged it a bit and I asked her to use a different weight and finish for the paper, too, so that it was more of a satin finish rather than the heavier, matte one from before.

I put the cover on right there at the shop because there was simply no time for any more mistakes. The woman even printed a second copy just in case for free! Lesson learned: get your ish together within business hours so you can always shop local!

Anywhoodle… once the book was completed I was absolutely over the moon. It was so beautiful- the cover really looked like a legit dust jacket! I made the author name Nicole Bailey because duh and at the bottom of the spine I put the proposal date as a sort of serial number. There were a number of little details for them to discover. It was handmade so it wasn’t without a tiny bit of jankiness. But that’s the beauty of handmade, no? It’s truly one of a kind. Just like this couple and just like their proposal.

I got a text from Nicole as I was headed to the West Bank. It was a picture of her brand new engagement ring! She said just as she suspected, Bailey popped the question during her part of the day’s activities. I was beaming (and definitely NOT texting while driving) as that just meant everything was going to go according to plan.

And man. Did it ever.

At the library, I arranged the book and lily where Nicole and I had decided the proposal should happen. I then proceeded to take 18 hundred milliondy photos of the setup because I just couldn’t get over how dang good it turned out! Nicole and Bailey showed up to the teeny tiny library right on time and I was SHAKING! I don’t get too nervous before proposals most of the time anymore. I’ve just done so many (so many I have currently lost count but I will rectify that soon!) that it’s easy to cruise right through them cool as a cucumber. But this one? I’d invested SO many hours and was SO pumped about it that I was NERVOUS AS HELL!

It was truly a waste of adrenaline because Nicole NAILED IT!!!

Everything went EXACTLY as we had planned. I mean EX-ACT-LY! Like maybe the most nailed it a proposal has ever been in the history of proposals. And oh my god Bailey’s reaction just the most perfect thing ever! She squealed, she jumped up and down, she giggled- all while maintaining a library-appropriate volume.

And the best part? She didn’t notice me AT ALL! Thanks, silent shutter mode! You a real one!

I could have stayed there taking photos with them for hours (it would have helped me miss rush hour traffic getting back so maybe I should have. Damn you, pedestrian-only ferry!). We did a few inside where, admittedly, the light was not the best. So we went outside and hung out in the cute little side yard next to the cute little library. They told me all about how Bailey had proposed earlier in the day and that she actually did not expect for Nicole to propose!

Bailey was completely surprised! I mean, who would expect a custom book with you and your partner on the cover to appear in a library just before said partner whips out a book-shaped ring box and takes a knee? Literally no one. That’s who.

Nicole said she was thrilled with the way the book turned out (slight jankiness and all). She said she expected me to just print out the photo and glue it to the cover. Oh hells no, baby girl. You didn’t hire the only (and therefore, by default, the best) Proposal Expert in New Orleans to get some half-assed mumbo jumbo. Not on my watch! I wanted them to have a beautiful keepsake from the experience that they can take them wherever their lives lead them.

We shared a group hug before I brought them to my car and gifted them the extra copy of the cover. They said they planned on framing it and started discussing where they should hang it at home. They were also both giggling. Still. They really never stopped!

I drove home on cloud nine. Not even bridge traffic could spoil the warm fuzzies that proposal gave me. Not only was it incredibly sweet and fun but we really knocked the whole thing out of the park. I love having the opportunity to flex my creative muscle and create works of art for proposal clients. A surprise proposal is a once-in-a-lifetime moment and I believe couples should have the most memorable experience possible.

A big thank you to NOPL and the Hubbell branch staff for allowing us to make this happen and a shoutout to my printer MVP Arc Document Solutions!

Photos from Nicole’s love in a library proposal to Bailey after the jump!

Ready to plan your perfect proposal? Click below!